Tubular Cast-On

Last night I began googling “tubular cast on” and came up with several web pages and youtube videos.  Anyone who knits socks from the top down really should at least try this method.  It makes the most amazingly smooth and finishing looking edge!  I plan to use this method for all my socks.

At first, it’s a bit confusing and “fiddly” but once I got it, it’s so easy and even though a bit of waste yarn is used and then thrown out, and it takes a few minutes to knit a couple of rows that will be ripped off, I believe it’s worth it.

This is the video I decided made more sense to me.   I didn’t actually try it til this morning and after thinking about it a while, I realized that it might be a bit different for socks.  It isn’t really but reading this tutorial helped.  I got it right the first time I tried it so you know   .. it can’t be too hard!  At the bottom of this post, I’ll give you a few tips that helped me.

Can you see how nice the top edge of this sock looks?

This is what the top of my typical long tail cast on socks looks like.  It isn’t bad and it’s pretty common but after seeing and feeling the edge made using the tubular cast on method, I don’t think I’ll have any more of these type tops.

I’m so impressed with how easy and pretty this edge looks!

Tips that helped me get this right:

• I use four needles when knitting socks (three with yarn and one for working).  These particular socks required 64 stitches so I had 32 on the needles initially.  It was a bit tight, especially when picking up the purl bumps so I divided the yarn across four needles and worked with a 5th.
• If it’s still tight, when picking up the purl bump, it was sometimes easier to use another needle to pick up the purl bumps.
• Because the “real” sock doesn’t start til  you add  your working yarn, where I actually started with the real sock doesn’t matter.  I found that having all the stops/starts at the same spot was confusing.  I had 16/32/16 stitches on the needles.  Instead of starting the blue yarn in the same place I started the green yarn (in between the two 16 stitch points), I started the blue yarn in the middle of the 32 stitch needle.  Once the green yarn was removed, it didn’t matter.  I still had 16/32/16 stitches on the needles but it was a different configuration from where it was with the green yarn.  I’m betting this makes no sense at all while reading it but maybe once you start knitting, it will make sense.
• Not sure this picture helps but you can see the green/blue yarns.  The green is the waste that is eventually removed.

Please don’t be frightened by my tips and photos.  This really is so easy and such an improved way to cast on.